Their not,??? gunpowder river fish is orange on black, on white is a brookie color.

I agree with what you're saying, but not what you're seeing. On the GP fish, I can see no black on either the pectoral or pelvic fins; the anal fin clearly has the black.

On the picture above, I think (and I'll be the first to admit I'm not sure) I see a black ray on the pelvic fin between the orange and white, near his finger and fading as it goes back. I've blown the picture up as far as my computer will let me, and I still can't decide.

The point of the GP fish was that not every fin needs the obvious black ray.

(I'll also add the more I stare at the picture, the more I'm thinking brown.)

Mountainbrookie wrote:I caught this uniquely colored brown (?) today on a black ghost streamer. I catch quite a few browns in this stream that also have the tiger stripe/ worm markings. Just looking for some clarification as it's definitely not your typical brown.

I wrote to the PFBC and asked them about this trout. Got the reply back today. They said it is a tiger trout. So that should make it offical.Here is the reply.

Mountainbrookie wrote:I caught this uniquely colored brown (?) today on a black ghost streamer. I catch quite a few browns in this stream that also have the tiger stripe/ worm markings. Just looking for some clarification as it's definitely not your typical brown.

I wrote to the PFBC and asked them about this trout. Got the reply back today. They said it is a tiger trout. So that should make it offical.Here is the reply.

Weve been down this road before. Thats a brown. If they claim thats a tiger I will start taking pictures of them as I catch probably 50 browns much like that one every year.When you do catch a tiger, you wont feel compelled to ask whether its a tiger or a brown. You'll know it.

There are simply not enouh brook trout charicteristics in this fish for it to be tiger. Like sandfly said the fins Must have that white on black coloration. I believe what RedIez is seeing is glare on the edges due to water.

The original poster said he catches quite a few trout in this stream with that type of markings. That is a strong indication that these fish are not tiger trout. Because tiger trout are rarely occurring, sterile hybrid crosses between brown trout and brook trout. They cannot pass on their characteristics to form a line of tiger trout.

So, I think they are brown trout, and very interesting looking ones. I wish I knew the stream, I'd like to see those fish.

Some years back there was a book called Trout published by Stackpole, and it had photos of different strains of trout from different parts of Europe and the British Isles. Their markings and coloration varied tremendously. And apparently lots of different strains of browns ended up here in the US.

Despite the PFBC ruling on the matter, I still vote brown trout. I catch a few of these type of browns every year, most of them reasonably large and wild. I caught one on Spring Creek last year, for instance.

I have never considered them to be tigers. If they are tigers, then I probably have 20 wild tigers to my name, 15 of which go greater than a foot in length and one memorable one that approached 20".

Alas, as it is, I still don't believe I've EVER caught a wild tiger despite often fishing places where its possible.

I myself have never seen a tiger trout that had the pectoral fins of a brookie. with the red black and white. The ones I've caught and seen have all had a yellow-orange pectoral fin.I caught a large trout this year that had similar markings, I wouldn't commit to either. There is a strain of brown trout somewhere that have markings like that.It looks like a stocked fish, I'm going to assume it's from a stocked stream, so if there were a bunch of tigers stocked in the stream that explains why there have been a bunch caught that look like this fish.

Posted on: 2010/6/4 21:15

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The object of a resource is to use and reuse a resource, not to use it up, have we learned nothing in over 125 years of stocking?

Spring Reilly is an individual and shouldn't be used to represent the PFBC as a whole. I've met her a few times and know she has proper knowledge of the woods and waters of PA. If she knew that picture would be argued over by dozens of well versed fly fishermen, down to the second water drop on the third rib of the pectoral fin, she may have been a bit more cautious about saying if it was or wasn't, in fact, a tiger trout. But hey, we're all human and it's an interesting fish either way.

Posted on: 2010/6/11 0:24

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'Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after'